Old Guard suing the would be New Guard to hold their position. I remember something like this with broadcast/cable companies and VCRs. VCRs won that first round, but in the long run who can say? Cable companies still exist and are still stuck up as ever, but good luck finding a VCR.

I'm just waiting for someone to call Aereo the Boston Strangler. I hope to God it happens.

Nah, this clearly calls for more drastic analogies. Clearly Aereo is like the evil dream team of Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler, and Charlie Manson. Only the VCR was to Hollywood as the Boston strangler was to the woman home alone.

I hope the Supreme Court just turn the studios down and the appellate court ruling stands. All Aereo has done is play by the rules the incumbents lobbied for. They're just upset to be beaten at their own game.

Still astonishing to me that they're spending all of this legal effort rather that just putting their own (paid) solution together. It'd be trivial to beat Aereo at their own game, because they wouldn't have to jump through all the insane legal/technical hoops regarding copyright law, and could just contract most of the work out to Netflix/Hulu/whatever.

Old Guard suing the would be New Guard to hold their position. I remember something like this with broadcast/cable companies and VCRs. VCRs won that first round, but in the long run who can say? Cable companies still exist and are still stuck up as ever, but good luck finding a VCR.

Old Guard suing the would be New Guard to hold their position. I remember something like this with broadcast/cable companies and VCRs. VCRs won that first round, but in the long run who can say? Cable companies still exist and are still stuck up as ever, but good luck finding a VCR.

Welcome to this century. We have DVRs now.

How many DVRs allow you to save and archive content? Record from HDMI?

Broadcasters rely on the revenues they receive from the cable and satellite companies that retransmit their signals to recoup their substantial investments in programming, to fund new shows, and to develop new delivery platforms.

A) "ABC, Disney, CBS, NBC, and several others" are not broadcasters, so by their own argument they have no standing to bring this suit.

B) Broadcasters do not, by definition, invest in programming.

C) The broadcasters' business model was and should be paid advertizing, not extortion from the cable and satellite companies. If anything, they should pay the cable and satellite companies for bringing them more eyeballs for them to rent to Coke, McDonald's, Ford, etc.

D) "develop new delivery platforms"? Are you serious? If you had done that Aereo would have no business model. If you were truly interested in developing new delivery platforms you would compete with Aereo head-on, and without the cost of maintaining thousands of tiny antennas and thousands of DVRs you should be able to beat them at their own game.

Wise, Aged Ars Veteran beat me to this comment. This is the same sentiment I expressed on the same article from another site. What Aereo is doing is giving the networks viewers that they would not otherwise get. So the networks and advertisers should be happy.

They already broadcast their shows for free. The networks just need to ask Aereo for usage statistics and use that information to charge their advertisers more.

Their issue is they charge satellite and cable companies for carriage.

If this holds up then these providers will just set up their own antenna farms and stop paying the networks for carriage.

The only downside to that is that my cable bill will probably go up "to re-coup the cost of all those tiny antennas." Funny how no matter what happens, the only constant in life is that your cable bill is going up.

Old Guard suing the would be New Guard to hold their position. I remember something like this with broadcast/cable companies and VCRs. VCRs won that first round, but in the long run who can say? Cable companies still exist and are still stuck up as ever, but good luck finding a VCR.

Welcome to this century. We have DVRs now.

True, but with a VCR I could pop out the tape and take it to someone else's house so they could watch some show they'd missed and forgot to record. With my DVR if they didn't' record it, too bad. (yes, I know they could come over to my house to watch it, but I've already seen it; I'd rather lend them the tape)

Old Guard suing the would be New Guard to hold their position. I remember something like this with broadcast/cable companies and VCRs. VCRs won that first round, but in the long run who can say? Cable companies still exist and are still stuck up as ever, but good luck finding a VCR.

Just to clarify: if the Supreme Court declines to hear the appeal, is that it? Do the networks have any other recourse?

The 2nd circuit's precedent is only binding within it's area of coverage (NY, VT, CT); (although judges elsewhere can use rulings elsewhere as part of the basis of their own decisions if they wish to). As Aero expands they can try their luck in the other 12 districts. If they can get a win there; split rulings in different parts of the country make it more likely a future appeal will be heard by the Supreme Court. They can also try to buy off Congress or the FCC and have Aero ruled illegal that way.

Old Guard suing the would be New Guard to hold their position. I remember something like this with broadcast/cable companies and VCRs. VCRs won that first round, but in the long run who can say? Cable companies still exist and are still stuck up as ever, but good luck finding a VCR.

Welcome to this century. We have DVRs now.

How many DVRs allow you to save and archive content?

I know TiVo does, perhaps they all do.

Quote:

Record from HDMI?

How many VCRs do that?

I know my terabit HDD in my home theater pc holds a crap ton of shows. I could send them to a friend if I wanted but everyone that wants to has a DVR so why. VCRs sucked and other then provide precedent for DVRs should not be considered as a good thing in a day where we can save HD content.

Old Guard suing the would be New Guard to hold their position. I remember something like this with broadcast/cable companies and VCRs. VCRs won that first round, but in the long run who can say? Cable companies still exist and are still stuck up as ever, but good luck finding a VCR.

Welcome to this century. We have DVRs now.

How many DVRs allow you to save and archive content?

I know TiVo does, perhaps they all do.

Quote:

Record from HDMI?

How many VCRs do that?

I know my terabit HDD in my home theater pc holds a crap ton of shows. I could send them to a friend if I wanted but everyone that wants to has a DVR so why. VCRs sucked and other then provide precedent for DVRs should not be considered as a good thing in a day where we can save HD content.

D-VHS recorded up to 1080i long before Bluray and HD-DVD were even a twinkle in Hollywood's eye.

Old Guard suing the would be New Guard to hold their position. I remember something like this with broadcast/cable companies and VCRs. VCRs won that first round, but in the long run who can say? Cable companies still exist and are still stuck up as ever, but good luck finding a VCR.

VCRs and Cable companies weren't in a format war like say, HD-DVD and BluRay, so you can't claim that cable companies managed to outcompete VCR.

VCRs have just been replaced with better technologies, although, I doubt it takes much luck to purchase one in Walmart.

It's sad that, in addition to broadcast television, every industry these days has resorted to a "if-you-can't-or-won't-innovate,-litigate" business strategy. Just think about where we could be now if it the old guard innovated instead of litigated all these years.

Old Guard suing the would be New Guard to hold their position. I remember something like this with broadcast/cable companies and VCRs. VCRs won that first round, but in the long run who can say? Cable companies still exist and are still stuck up as ever, but good luck finding a VCR.

Welcome to this century. We have DVRs now.

How many DVRs allow you to save and archive content?

I know TiVo does, perhaps they all do.

Quote:

Record from HDMI?

How many VCRs do that?

I know my terabit HDD in my home theater pc holds a crap ton of shows. I could send them to a friend if I wanted but everyone that wants to has a DVR so why. VCRs sucked and other then provide precedent for DVRs should not be considered as a good thing in a day where we can save HD content.

D-VHS recorded up to 1080i long before Bluray and HD-DVD were even a twinkle in Hollywood's eye.